Vamparazzi

by Laura Resnick

  “I really don’t know about this.” I shook my head. “Sure, Daemon’s a jerk with bloodsucking pretensions. And tonight he actually scared me onstage. For a minute there, I thought ... you know.”

  I touched the welt on my neck, remembering the reckless enthusiasm with which he had bit and sucked while I wrestled with him in front of the audience. Was he reliving what had happened in private with the demented fan he’d taken home last night? Had she struggled, too, before dying?

  “I really should have punched him,” Lopez muttered.

  With my wits recovered, though, I recognized that Daemon had let go of me as soon as the lighting changed and I played Jane’s death. He hadn’t even missed his cue, never mind losing his head while holding me in his arms and gnawing on my neck. What had excited Daemon tonight, far more than biting me, was the audience’s captivated reaction during that scene, followed by the wild applause, the standing ovation, and the curtain calls. That was what he was after, and being too rough with me was just a means to get it. My neck was a prop, not the real object of his appetite. His actions had been a narcissistic performance, not a seduction or an attack. And that was in keeping with all my other experience of him.

  “Despite everything, I have a hard time seeing him as a murderer,” I said. “I mean, murder is serious. It’s for real. Whereas Daemon is such a poseur. He’s just so . . . absurd.”

  My companion, more experienced than I with such things, pointed out, “You know what a serial killer’s neighbors and coworkers usually say when he’s arrested ? ‘He seemed like such a harmless guy.’ ”

  “Oh.” I felt a chill, and I wasn’t sure if it was because my neckline invited pneumonia in that drafty theater, or because of what I remembered next. “Uh, did I mention that I hit Daemon and threatened him tonight?”

  Lopez gave a startled laugh. “After he bit you? Good.”

  “Maybe not so good,” I said uneasily.

  Realizing I was unnerved, he covered my clasped hands with one of his and squeezed gently. “Keep in mind that when a man preys on a lone woman, he’s usually looking for an easy, vulnerable target. He wants a victim who’ll be terrified and submissive, not someone who’ll fight back, verbally challenge him, and turn his attack into a struggle that he risks losing.”

  “Oh.” I was slightly reassured by this. “Daemon probably knows that leaves me out.”

  He grinned and released my hands. “Anyone who’s ever met you knows that leaves you out.”

  “Look, you met Daemon tonight. Sort of. Did he strike you as dangerous?”

  “No, he struck me as pretty absurd, too,” Lopez admitted. “But impressions can be misleading, so that doesn’t mean it’s safe for you to be around him. Besides, his being the killer is just one of the possibilities that got me sneaking in here to talk to you now instead of going home to sleep off a thirty-hour shift.”

  “I have a feeling I’ll regret asking this, but what other possibilities are you thinking about?”

  “Well, even if Daemon’s not so convinced by his own act that he went nuts and tried to be a real vampire, killing a woman in the process . . .” Lopez’s hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away. “That doesn’t mean that no one else felt convinced enough by Daemon’s crap to try it. It might be someone Angeline knew, someone she hooked up with sometime after leaving here with Daemon. Or maybe the killer is someone who’s obsessed with Daemon. In which case . . .” He paused before saying, “One of the patrolmen who’s been on duty here thinks that some of Daemon’s fans would like to take your place—or take your character’s place.”

  “Yeah, I’m hearing that a lot tonight.”

  “Some of his fans see the chemistry between you and Daemon as—”

  “It’s not between me and Daemon,” I said sharply. “It’s between Ruthven and Jane!” After a moment, I added, “Sorry. Sore spot.”

  Staying on point, he continued, “For a fan obsessed with Daemon, the perception of his attraction to you—or to your character—could make you a target. The person who killed a Jane look-alike, after Daemon singled her out in public last night, might be working his—or her—way up to killing the real Jane. So to speak.”

  “Well. I’m really glad I asked you to specify your worries for me,” I said sourly. “I feel so much better now.”

  “It’s just a theory,” he said, trying to soothe me.

  “It’s a theory,” I said, my voice a little shrill with anxiety, “that got you rushing over here after a thirty-hour shift, in the middle of the night, when we haven’t even seen or spoken to each other for months—”

  “And whose choice was that?” he snapped.

  There was a moment of tense, surprised silence between us.

  “Sorry.” Lopez took a steadying breath and repeated, “Sorry. That’s not what I meant to say.”

  “I told you why . . .” I felt flustered. “I mean, I think I told you why—”

  “Let’s not get sidetracked again,” he said. “I didn’t come here to . . . I don’t want you to . . .” He let out his breath in a rush and concluded, “We need to stay focused.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Like a seasoned actor slipping back into character for the next scene, Lopez deliberately shifted gears into cop mode. “Have you noticed anyone strange hanging around the theater lately?”

  I gave him an incredulous look. “Uh, yes.”

  “Oh. Right. Let me rephrase that.” He brushed black hair out of his eyes again. “Has anyone recently made you feel threatened or uncomfortable? Or seemed to be paying too much attention to you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “The murder victim.”

  “Anyone else?” he prodded.

  “Of course.” I gave him a few examples by describing the gauntlet I’d run outside the theater to get to work tonight.

  “How did the mad scientist expect you to collect a sample of Daemon’s semen?” Lopez demanded. “Wait. Never mind. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”

  “And when Leischneudel and I came to work last night,” I said, “some guy dressed in a black cape jumped right into our path when we were trying to get into the theater and threatened to drink our blood. I might be able to identify him if I saw him again. His fangs didn’t fit so well—they kind of wobbled, and he had a bit of a drooling problem.”

  “You’re making me really glad I deal with criminals instead of theatergoers,” Lopez said.

  “These aren’t theatergoers,” I said. “They’re vamparazzi.”

  “Whatzi?”

  I explained the phrase, which he liked, and then I concluded, “I don’t think the odds are very good of being able to spot a crazy killer in that particular crowd.”

  “You’ve got a point,” he said dryly. “All right, let’s talk instead about your safety. There are some rules I want you to follow until the killer is in custody.”

  “You mean guidelines,” I said.

  “No, these are rules, Esther. And if you break them, I promise you, we’ll have the worst fight we’ve ever had. Because I don’t want the investigating officers on this case to brief me about your death.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Are we clear?”

  He did not sound patient or soothing now. And, well, he had a point. So I said, “Yes. What are the rules?”

  The list was pretty much what you’d expect. In addition to avoiding contact with Daemon when we weren’t onstage, I mustn’t go anywhere alone; I must be extremely cautious with vamparazzi, strangers, and mere acquaintances ; and I couldn’t let anyone into my apartment whom I hadn’t known since before I auditioned for The Vampyre. Lopez agreed that Leischneudel could be an exception to this rule, since the actor wasn’t a suspect and his insistence on escorting me to and from work each night dovetailed well with the “don’t go anywhere alone” rule.

  Lopez also suggested, with obvious ambivalence, that I consider staying with Max for a while. “Just until the killer is arrested.”

  I shook my he
ad. “No, there’s no place for me to sleep there.”

  “So bring a sleeping bag. His place is huge, isn’t it? You could probably have the whole top floor to yourself.”

  “Ugh, no! I couldn’t possibly sleep up there. That’s where . . .” I froze and stopped speaking. For a moment, I stopped breathing.

  “That’s where what?” Lopez prodded.

  The third floor of Zadok’s Rare and Used Books, in the West Village, was where Hieronymus had lived. Max lived on the second floor and kept his laboratory in the basement. The bookstore was on the main floor.

  Hieronymus had been Max’s apprentice. And we had killed him.

  Well, Max had killed him, along with the help of an out-of-town mage named Lysander. But I had helped. A lot.

  It had been necessary, and I didn’t regret it. Hieronymus had been malevolent, power-mad, and practically genocidal. I felt a little haunted by his death, but not sorry about it. I had also taken pains to make sure Lopez never knew what we had done. There was too much about it that he wouldn’t understand—too much that the legal system, of which he was a part, wouldn’t understand, either.

  “What’s on the third floor of Max’s place?” he asked suspiciously.

  Hieronymus’ third-floor living quarters were sparsely furnished, and there was a bed there. But I couldn’t sleep in a bedroom vacated by someone I had helped kill. I just couldn’t.

  I also couldn’t explain the situation to Lopez. So I gave myself a mental shake and said simply, “I don’t want to impose on Max.”

  “I don’t think he’d regard it as an impos—”

  “I have three locks on my front door at home. I’ll use them all. I’ll keep all the windows locked, too. Leischneudel will search my place at night when he takes me home. And I’ll follow all your rules. Okay?”

  “Call nine-one-one if there’s any trouble,” Lopez instructed. “Any trouble. And call my cell if anything at all seems a little odd or out of the ordinary to you.”

  “Ever since opening night, things seem odd and—”

  “I mean, if you think someone in the subway is staring at you, or if you see a stranger loitering outside your apartment, or if you hear a noise at night that’s probably just the building settling, call me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I understand that. But there’s something I don’t understand,” I said. “Why were you briefed about this case?”

  He was in the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Unless Angeline’s death was mob-related—and nothing Lopez had said to me indicated this—I didn’t understand why an OCCB detective would be involved in this investigation. Unless ...

  I asked suddenly, “It is because of me? Because the cops know that you and I are ... friends?”

  That wasn’t precisely the right word, but calling him my ex-almost-boyfriend seemed like a bit of a mouthful. And I supposed what was between us was indeed a kind of friendship.

  “They didn’t know we’re . . . friends,” he said, obviously unable to think of a better word, either, for our strange relationship. “But when they briefed me, I disclosed. So hopefully they’ll keep in mind, when they question you, that I know you.”

  “So if that’s not why, then why have you been briefed?”

  “They called me after someone realized this murder could be related to the case I’m investigating,” he said carefully.

  Still not seeing the potential organized crime angle, I asked, “Why do they think that?”

  “There are some similarities. Such as where the body was found.” He shook his hair out of his eyes. It promptly fell back over them.

  “Where was it found?”

  He hesitated, then said, “Okay. This part’s bound to be in the news, too. The body was found underground.”

  8

  “What do you mean, underground?”I asked with a frown. “Was Angeline killed on a subway train?”

  “No. She was found on an old abandoned subway platform downtown. At a station that closed about fifty years ago.”

  “Fifty years ago?” I blinked. “What was she doing there?”

  “Nothing. There’s no blood at the scene. She was killed somewhere else.”

  “But if she was exsanguinated . . . I mean, there wouldn’t be blood, would there?”

  “Oh, there would be a fair amount. It wasn’t done with surgical tidiness.” Obviously not wanting me to dwell on that, he continued, “Transit workers found her. It was just dumb luck that she was discovered so quickly. Workers seldom have a reason to access that site, and no one else is supposed to go there at all. Hardly anyone even knows the place exists. The body could have been there for weeks or months, completely decomposed—or even eaten by rodents—before anyone found it.”

  I gave a startled gasp of revulsion.

  “Sorry.” He touched me briefly in apology and gave himself a shake. “I didn’t mean to . . . You know.”

  I realized he’d spoken so frankly because he was too exhausted to self-edit well.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, “this play you’re in has been such a headache to the department for the past couple of nights that the officers on the scene thought of it right away when they saw the historical costume the victim was wearing. And, of course, it turned out that she’d made quite an impression on the patrolmen outside the stage door last night.”

  “Then they also called you because this might be connected to . . .” Even though we were alone, I lowered my voice, “To your undercover case?”

  “Well, calling me was a professional courtesy. So to speak,” he added, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. “Mostly, they were being thorough. Daemon Ravel’s involvement will put this investigation under a microscope. The department doesn’t want some telegenic celebrity lawyer to create reasonable doubt by claiming we failed to exercise due diligence or cross-reference similar cases.”

  With his long hair, grubby clothes, and beardshadowed face, Lopez looked kind of scary when he scowled darkly over the prospect of that happening.

  Then he continued, “But the cops who caught this case really like your costar for the murder. Failing that, they really like an as-yet-unknown obsessed fan for it. And their third favorite theory is that Angeline just made one bad choice too many last night. Murder is usually pretty simple, you know. So, with all those juicy possibilities right in front of them, they’re inclined to think any similarities to my case are probably just . . .” He shrugged. “Coincidence. A distraction.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know yet. They need to interview Daemon and to get forensics results. And I need to go over their case more thoroughly tomorrow. Tonight, I was, uh, caught flatfooted. I only really heard what was said up until the point where they named the actress who Angeline attacked last night, and I realized you were the person she was dressed up like when she was killed. After that ... everything else was just kind of a roaring in my ears.”

  “Oh.” Despite my skimpy clothing and a noticeable draft, I felt a welcome warmth slide gently over my skin.

  “So I thanked them for the information, and I asked to be updated tomorrow,” Lopez said. “I also agreed to follow orders, maintain my cover, and not interfere in this investigation.”

  “But then you came here.”

  “Then I can straight here,” he confirmed.

  The glow was spreading all through me now. “Thank you.”

  He held very still while I brushed his hair out of his eyes.

  “You’re welcome.”

  My hand lingered for a moment. He closed his eyes with a soft exhalation, turned his head, and pressed his cheek against my palm.

  I smiled as the stubble on his jaw tickled my skin. “You really need a shave.”

  He smiled, too, and opened his eyes. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  Sitting together in the shadows, our eyes held for a contented moment.

  Then Mad Rachel’s voice, echoing through the whole backstage area, broke the spell. “What do you mean I can’t leave?”

/>   We both turned our heads to listen. I heard an unfamiliar male voice arguing with Rachel near the stage door. I couldn’t make out his words. His tone was polite but firm, despite Rachel’s growing hostility.

  “The police? Why do the police want to talk to me?” After another brief interchange, she said, “Fine, all of us! Whatever. Why?” When she didn’t get an explanation that satisfied her, Rachel started shrieking for our stage manager. “Bill! Bill! BILL!”

  I heard more voices. Agitation began spreading through the cast and crew now. Leischneudel sounded confused and anxious. I heard Bill’s voice, too. He sounded depressed.

  “I think that’s my cue,” Lopez said wryly. “I’d better go.”

  “They’ll see you,” I said with concern. He’d had trouble at work in the past because of me; I didn’t want to cause him more problems. “The cops, I mean.”

  “No, they won’t.” Looking more alert now, he rose and took my hand. “Come on. There’s something I need to show you.”

  “Now?” I got to my feet.

  “Yes. Hurry.” He tugged me with him as he moved along the shadowy corridor, heading away from the commotion generated by Mad Rachel.

  “Not this way,” I protested softly. “It’s a dead end.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But—”

  “It’s the way I came in.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  He turned the corner and, as I’d predicted, we entered a dead-end alcove. There was some cleaning equipment, a broken vending machine, and a scarred door that led down to the basement. Lopez opened the door, turned on the stairwell light, and pulled me after him.

  “You came in via the basement?” I asked.

  “And if I can, then maybe someone else can, too,” he said.

  I felt cold again. “Such as the killer?”

  “I’d feel better if this building were more secure while you’re working in it,” he said, descending the stairs rapidly. “I’ll show you how I got in, so you can show the stage manager—or whoever’s responsible for this kind of thing around here—and have him seal it up.”